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Lobby Groups Launch Full Assault For Canadian DMCA
An anonymous reader writes "Bill C-61, the previous attempt at a Canadian DMCA, may have failed, but it is clear that the music, movie, and business software industries are engaged in putting massive pressure on the Canadian government to bring it back. Lobbying records show several meetings each week with Government Ministers for CRIA, CMPDA, and Microsoft over the past month. Meanwhile, the CRIA is preparing a grassroots campaign in support of new copyright laws, even claiming that the current rules are costing jobs to truck drivers delivering CDs and DVDs."
I thought that distribution was supposed to be moving towards being done over the net anyways. Tough to say if new copyright laws will be able to be pushed through anyways right now, what with the minority government and all right now.
Lawyers, lawyers everyehre.
even claiming that the current rules are costing jobs to truck drivers delivering CDs and DVDs.
You know what costs jobs? Technological change -- it's a good thing.
Silver Clipboard: Time Management Tips
Simple fix: faster broadband, then re-train the DC truck drivers into hard disk truck drivers.
If these media companies keep this shit up, I think a lot of creative people will stop providing them with content.
It would be fun to form a mass co-op type business, pool everyone's cash and buy up as many band contracts as possible just to keep them off the major labels.
Maybe its time for a global over arching consumer group on a par with RIAA, to coordinate a global push back. RIAA and its associated entities besides having the cash have better global coordination. There seem to be disparate consumer type groups that operate country by country, lacking cash and proper media profiles... Just a though anyway
Then maybe the media levy that is currently distributed amongst artists should also be distributed to truckers too?
Problem solved.
Long story short, Canada doesn't have a copyright problem. Tweak the levies if you want, but don't blow a good thing. DMCA style laws haven't worked anywhere else they've been implemented. The Canadian levy system shows far more promise. Heck, maybe the U.S. should be adopting our levy system instead of trying to make us adopt their horribly broken and ineffectual laws!
A number of popular names have started doing that already. Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead, and lots more.
And I bet you haven't contributed anything to them either. Well, get off your butt and go here:
https://secure.eff.org/site/Donation2?idb=138949259&df_id=1220&1220.donation=form1
to contribute. The page says "End Warrantless Wiretapping!" but it is actually a membership page. Sign the hell up and give them some money. You are not limited to their fixed amounts, they will take any donation.
but I imagine that if they got enough support from Canadians, they would help there, too. I don't know of any reason why not.
WE aren't trying to get you to adopt our laws!!! Excuse me, but those are YOUR OWN companies doing that. WE don't like the DMCA any more than you do. It was sneaked past us (or most of us anyway), when we weren't looking.
And it is true that the DMCA doesn't work worth a damn, except to make things more difficult for the consumer. On the other hand, the levy system (as it has been proposed here, anyway) would not work either, since it collects money from honest people to pay for the activities of dishonest people, and the artists do not get paid either. So, in effect, the money comes from the wrong people and it goes to the wrong people.
Stop funding them. More and more artists are starting to see the light - that even if they give away their new albums online, and make their money via live concerts, they will *still* make more than they are through these usurious contracts they have with Big Media, Inc.
If people would just stop buying RIAA-produced crap (and stop stealing it!), the problem would eventually solve itself. It's no secret that they'll need to be dragged kicking and screaming back to this thing we all know as 'reality,' but it's gotta happen sooner or later. Right now we're just prolonging the agony for everyone.
is that the recording companies can no longer force people to buy a whole album (CD) to get one or two good songs. People are paying a buck or so for individual songs, and just passing up the bad ones. So the recording companies' revenue goes down proportionately... as it should. But they want to keep forcing you to buy a CD.
The old model of "let's spend millions promoting this artist, then sell 6 million CDs at $20 each" just won't wash anymore. But they don't want to accept that. Well, that makes them dinosaurs.
Fewer trucks on the road and fewer CDs being smelted cannot possibly be a bad thing in the big picture. Not a big impact but would positive contribution if it was not BS trying to pass a law.
[20:36] wwwdot/.dotorg
It's far from over yet. There is still an lengthy appeals process to go through.
The CRIA and CMPDA don't seem to understand is that the basis of the business law in Canada requires that when you pay for something, you get something in return. Either a physical form, a license, or a service.
When you buy a product, you have complete ownership of that product to do with what you want. Now the companies can set what the warranty covers, but they can't control what you do with it.
Because of the greed of the Music and Film industries this wasn't going to work for them because they wanted to control public showing. Part of Canadian law covers that in the form of purchasing a license.
This allowed them to license the property for private, or various forms of publish showing. The only problem is you own the license to that performance, not the media it was originally delivered on.
If I were to download a copy of the blu-ray versions of the movies I own on DVD, that's not illegal because media and format are physical things, I own a license to watch that movie already, it doesn't matter how I get the physical form of it.
There is the special case Rental License which is paying for the ability to borrow a license someone else owns for a set period of time. There are quite a few restrictions put on rentals to prevent the abuse that the CRIA and CMPDA have tried over the years.
What the music and video industries have been able to do in other countries is take your money, but give nothing in return. You are paying for the possibility that they might let you listen/watch what you paid for, you have no ownership, license, or rental.
Business law requires that you either get ownership, a license, or a rental license. All business law is predicated on that. Any modifications to those rules is unconstitutional and is a criminal offense. If this rule was somehow overruled, it would invalidate all business law in Canada.
Another interesting aspect of this basis of law is that you also can't get anything for free. To get a product, license, or rental, you have to pay, or do something for it.
This is one of the reasons why a lot of these "free" contest have skill testing questions before you can win the prise, or other forms of "work". In answering the question, you have done some work, to get the prise.
Also many cars have been sold for a cent because you can't just give a friend a car, no matter what shape it's in. Though now, may only apply to BC, a law has been passed that you have to pay at least $50 for a car. The government wants some tax money.
Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon what's the difference? All steal money from devs and control with walled gardens.
They treat this like it's a matter of national security.
For goodness sake, it's entertainment!
Why can't they focus this hard on things that actually matter to the health and success of their people?
Of course we in the US are just as guilty.
A short list of things more important right now:
Why our troops are in Afganistan (which you say is unwinnable
Our Economy
The Health Care system
Our relationship with the US and the EU
Food Safety
Your party is slipping in the polls again. Most people will see this as a waste of time and tax payer money, just like last time.
Sincerely,
A Canadien Taxpayer
Anyone got a light for my sig?
even claiming that the current rules are costing jobs to truck drivers delivering CDs and DVDs."
This is a fun game!
I will see your "jobless CD and DVD delivering truck drivers", and raise you one "dependence on foreign oil funds terrorism". So see, distributing digital material online actually reduces global terrorism and is thus a "goof thing"! Your move.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
> ...Government Ministers for CRIA, CMPDA, and Microsoft...
Canada has a Minister for Microsoft?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
You know what pisses me off?
The copyright industry is trying to have it both ways.
Copyright is supposed to be a partnership between the public and creators. It's supposed to be a 2-way thing.
As much as the copyright holders love to bitch about how piracy is theft, so is what they're doing. They've stolen 50 years of our culture and locked it away in a vault so they can eke out a few dollars by opening the vault every few years. They're literally stealing money from us every time we buy a CD or hard disk, but they don't want to deal with the fact that we get to have music for that tax. Now, they want to have more control over expression than copyright ever intended, and they want to have it longer than ever before.
If these companies want all these things, if they want to be able to shut down free speech or control all speech, fine. Let's make the copyright term 5 years. If they want legislation to mandate that they get to have a chip in my computer telling me what I can and cannot watch, then the trade-off should be that the stuff they have power over should be incredibly fleeting. The idea of giving them absolute control over every computer in the country, then giving them that control for 100 or 150 years is utterly against the idea of copyright.
It's been a long time.
What they did is not actually illegal in Sweden, and this verdict was delivered by the lowest court. Sucks to be you not knowing what 'appeal' means.
mediocrity rules, man
The past: Technology has created the horseless carrige. Physical items are moved around more effieciently. Horseshoe repairmen are out of jobs
The present: Technology has created the digital age. Information is reproduced and spread about more efficiently. The middlemen who use to reproduce (making records/cds) and spread (market and distribute) this information are losing their jobs.
The furture: Technology has created a device that clones physical items like food. Physical items are reproduced more efficiently. If the present is any indication, the people who use to create these physical items will be trying to use the law to prevent society from freely reproducing these physical items.
I agree copyright is a good thing for society, but technology has made its current length unreasonable
Please Canada take a look at the USA and see how between software patents, the DMCA, and other draconian legislation, our tech sector has been quickly crumbling.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Dear Canadian Government Officials:
Your Corporate Overlords in the United States DEMAND you pass this legislation immediately! We order our continental second-class citizens to bow to our dictates. If you do not, it will jeopardize your status as our vassal and psychological 51st state. Disobey your American Corporate Overlords at your own peril. Obey!
USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA!
That should do the trick.
A) get bell canada to double cost of internet
- this takes voices off the net in droves
B) wait till iggy got power and made peace with lyin brian mulroney
- this makes the liberals and conservatives buddies and makes thngs JUST like a democrat and republic dum dum election event as in bribe both sides and get what you want.
C) Continue to get the Harper govt to sneak in other legislation with other laws until you jig saw n the worst piece of copyright laws you can that will destroy the economy.
ANYONE that says Hollywood is good for the world should be shot as a traitor to there country.
Anyone touting these laws is a traitor.
I live in Ottawa and want to do something more than write a letter that I know will be ignored to a local MP who I know is not in line with my position anyway. While I'm interested in law & policy as it applies to this domain, it's definitely not in my sphere of knowledge.
Do /.ers have any suggestions about what I can do to fight this, or good ways to raise awareness?
Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing. -- Wernher von Braun
Maybe someone should tell the CRIA that "grassroots" campaigns coming from paid staffers is called astroturf.
I don't have a problem with most of the proposals, as long as three criteria are met: 1) that the mere technological circumvention of copy protection does not, by itself, constitute the breaking of any law, including copyright; 2) that copying for personal and private use of the person making the copy always be exempt from infringement, as long as the copy from which the private-use copy was made was not itself infringing; and 3) that if copy protection circumvention must be considered a crime at all, that it _ONLY_ be considered such when actual copyright infringement has also occurred.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Advancements in Railroad technology will cost Canadian truck drivers far more jobs than anything else in the near future.
It is true that Canada signed the previous WIPO treaties, what is even more true is that Canada is in compliance with those treaties right now without any additional DCMA laws. It is also true that the CRIA has been pushing for stronger laws, like c-61, it also happens to be true that the CRIA does not represent Canadian artists. The CRIA was forced a few years back to write and distribute a announcement to that fact after the Canadian artists said "screw you and your horrible ideals". The CRIA needs to expect another large fight on their hands with this tripe, and possibly a lawsuit pretending to be a grass roots organization.
Think of the environmental benefits of having fewer cd's dvd's produced - just to be stockpiled in everyones homes then to end up in the garbage dumps, and fewer gas guzzling trucks on the roads is certainly a plus too. PS...I'm not a green peace freak, just trying to look on the bright side of things. lol.
I wish the MAFIAA good luck.
Geist has the ear of the main stream media outlets in CA, and will be able to handily shoot down any "arguments" they try to offer to stir up "grass roots" campaigns.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Complete BS! What they fail to mention is what's really costing truckers jobs -- the increase in online digital sales. According to http://www.itfacts.biz/33-of-all-music-sold-in-2008-was-digital/12867 and other sites 33% of all music sales last year were digital. Smoke and mirrors.